Bad Oil Pump? No oil in valves?

hgallegos915 · 03-13-2004, 02:07 AM

My 96 cavalier had los the timing belt tensioner. I noticed that under the valve cover...it was dry, no oil. Now after replacing the broken tensioner. The car turned on fine. But afte removing the valve cover..still no oil getting the valves wet. Is this normal? There are no sounds to it but it worries me that i might have to drive it like this and then end up killing my engine. Some say it may be a clog, others say to drive it like this. what to do? Its the smaller 4 cyl engine. The car has a manual tranny. any mesages to hgallegos915@msn.com will be of great help. !!!! i need to have this fixed by monday

94tegRS · 03-13-2004, 02:17 AM

ok, dont drive it like this until someone(namely a mechanic or a tech at the chevy dealership) tells you it is OK, now are no oiil getting to the valves at all, or is there no oil WHATSOEVER in the head when you remove the valve cover. only thing I could think of is maybe it is a clog somehwere, and depending on how bad it is, putting in maybe 2 botles of that crankcase flush stuff that smells like kerosene and let it idle for a bit and the pump might get the cleaner up there and dissolve the clog, but I am not sure it would, maybe the oil pump is screwed, find out how the pump is driven on your car, and then find a way you can get it to spin without the engine running and rig some attatchment on a drill to turn it while the valve cover is off and see if oil comes up, if not you got a bad pump, I know on some V8's they sell oil pump primers for this purpowe, after you rebuild an engine it gets oil everywhere throughout the block before it ever turns over for its first start. I havent seen anything like this on an import, but maybe the timing belt turns a pulley for the water pump and then the oil pump is gear driven from that, then you could take off the timing belt, get a drill with a flex shaft and put a socket on it to fit the bolt holding on that pulley and let er rip. or however you need to do it.

hgallegos915 · 03-13-2004, 02:20 AM

I just barely replaced the old pump with a new pump. I primed the pump before installing it. Its dry when I take off the valve cover.

-Hector

94tegRS · 03-13-2004, 03:19 AM

well, I got no ideas then, maybe take it to the stealership

C_Sephiroth · 03-13-2004, 07:07 AM

Well First off DO NOT USE ENGINE FLUSH. I don't know how much to stress this. Engine flush is EXTEEMLY BAD for the engine bearings. It eats away at the dirt, But it does the same to the bearings. Lemme Tell ya a story. 96 S10 p/u truck. Has 45 PSI of oil press at idle Before flush. After flush, someone left it in to long. it had 2 psi. It wiped out all of the bearings and was making an extreemly loud wining noise.
Okay Second. You insalled a new oil pump? I would Run the Engine at 2000 RPM for 30-60 seconds, this will cause the pump to pump more oil push it up the push rods ( like what you do during an engine breakin(new engines)) Do you have a guage? or aLight for your oil Press? If you don't have a gueage I would have the oil press checked, maybe something went wrong with the install job of the oil pump.

94tegRS · 03-13-2004, 10:39 AM

I let it idle for only the 5 minutes it says and had no problems at all.

neves · 03-13-2004, 11:34 AM

if you're daring, you can run the engine with the cover off for a short time and see for yourself if it is not oiling. are you also absolutely sure that you did not install the oil pump backwards? easy but fatal mistake for a 2.2Liter chevy engine. check the pressure at the filter and is filter clogged?

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